The writer of this blog for Exquisite Fabrics (Brenda) had lived in Washington DC and Arlington VA since the age of 5, skipping the high school years, and again from age 17 on. The college experience, therefore, was lacking something (a campus), except for those exceptional times using the Georgetown and Yale special libraries. So, when Life presented her the opportunity to finish up a couple of long-postponed degrees in Blacksburg, she hopped right on it. Perfect timing to take time off work, hunker down, and get 'er done. An account:
I highly recommend Virginia Tech and the southwest Virginia region. Almost everyone who ventures down there falls in love with it...and that includes many from the DC suburbs..one of my young classmates from the DC suburbs said it all..."everything, EVERYTHING...is better down here...I will NOT be leaving here after graduation!" (after which a sympathizer told her she is just compounding the problem of "coming to Blacksburg and never leaving." And for me, the area is reminiscent of my ancestral homeland (the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania). And to think that "Life" never took me down there until last November...
It's not anything I can describe, other than anecdotes...it's not any one thing. But people in Blacksburg are very, very kind, the scenery is spectacular, the water tastes good (almost as good as pristine New York City water), there is weird "mountain weather" that reminds you that you are alive, and there is, in general, a real "down to earth" quality of life that, if a Martian landed, he would want to appropriate for himself. Less materialism. Little to no vulgarity. People who converse. Natural smiles. Modesty. Drivers who look for reasons to slow down and stop (35,000 students on campus and I never once heard a horn).
Do students get drunk on the weekends? Sure. Do young women text and drive? Sure, but not often. One of our customers warned me of the gray winters. Yes, true, this past winter was overcast and even a little depressing...but the spring! Yards in Blacksburg are planted with profuse crocus, daffodils, tulips, pansies, and poppies. Typically, lawns aren't saturated with herbicides, so they don't resemble golf courses... there are patches of violets and wildflowers, and dandelions don't seem unwelcome.
Well, we accomplished what we set out to do, the husband and I. We made it though what we called our "semester abroad"-- I was living 200 miles from him and doing a lot of driving back and forth, he was holding down the fort at work (and at home!). I found back roads to avoid the current I-64 congestion, enjoyed drafting behind trailer truckloads of onions on I-81, braved pea-soup mountain fog (the same fog you might have heard about that caused dozens of cars to pile up farther south on I-77--have never seen anything like it EVER), carefully made my way through a few snow, slush, and ice storms on Christiansburg Mountain, and earned the right to later savor the redbuds, flowering quince, and dogwoods that laced the way through the hills and mountains.
I learned to shop at Kroger, because there are no Safeways, Whole Foods, or Trader Joe's, much less any of the ethnic places we are used to for bread and tumeric and rice... (but there is a well-patronized farmer's market that starts up in May in downtown Blacksburg). I let the sweet and melancholy sounds of fiddles, guitars, banjos, and mandolins remind me of the kind of music my Grandad played. You can't buy a download of it. Only your neighbor or your teacher or classmate will play it for you, after which someone else will tell a story, Cherokee-style. He's from Crozet. She's from Meadows of Dan. Big Stone Gap, Madison, Abingdon.
Everyone should have a chance to re-boot, in a place where people are still real, or maybe real again. I am very fortunate.
